A Dangerous Leadership Mistake

-Source-Forbes- The Trump administrations decision to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council is yet another step in the administrations retreat from the world stage. Once widely viewed as a global leader on issues like human rights the U.S. is now a marginal player in headlong retreat from the leadership position it has occupied since World War II. In the postwar era the U.S. played a major role as an architect of the UN system and other international organizations and agreements that have dramatically advanced the countrys security and its economic and political interests. There is a direct link between the development of this international order and our prosperity and success over the last 70 years. Thats why the withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council is such a mistake. U.S. leadership in human rights has benefited the country and its allies. In the security realm the U.S. military led the effort to create the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. These accords have protected American service members for almost seven decades. On the economic front the U.S. again took the lead in crafting the so-called Bretton Woods agreements that led to the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These institutions have helped lift billions of people out of poverty. United States consumers and companies have also greatly benefited from the resultant globalized economic order. Politically the United Nations in 1946 created a human rights body then called the Commission on Human Rights. Under the stewardship of Eleanor Roosevelt the Commission drafted and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a document that emulates American constitutional guarantees such as freedom of speech and religion and asserts that people everywhere are entitled to these protections. Governments that have embraced this agenda based on human rights the rule of law and democracy are Americas closest friends strongest trading partners and most important strategic allies.